


a kind of cruelty

by thefudge



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Accidental Incest, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Incest, Mutual Pining, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, Political AU, Political Campaigns, soundtrack: green light by lorde and in my feelings by lana del rey OFC
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-21
Updated: 2019-03-21
Packaged: 2019-11-26 19:47:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18184955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thefudge/pseuds/thefudge
Summary: The one guy in the city she decided to kiss on New Year’s. It can’t be the fucking distant relative from the North. Can it?





	a kind of cruelty

**Author's Note:**

> i caught the jonerys bug again! must be because we're inching towards the final season. that and @elsac2's review on my other jonerys fic left me crying in the club, so!! i got inspired!! let me know if you like it!

***

 

This side of paradise, you can’t even see the lights.

The whole point of a New Year’s party is you get to watch fireworks. But from where she’s positioned on the balcony she can only see ghostly intimations of smoke. There’s the explosion happening somewhere behind her but her patch of sky is foggy and dark. Her shoulders sag.

The rest of the party has gone downstairs to spectate with the rest of the neighborhood. She didn’t have the heart to follow them.  

She shouldn’t have come. She feels old and used up among these kids, even if she’s in the prime of her youth.  

The campaign has aged her. Tyrion told her to let loose for one night, but watch out for any iPhones filming.

That’s like telling someone, _blink once and then never blink again._

She blinks, she blinks several times.

She can’t believe she’s getting misty-eyed at Asha Greyjoy’s party, of all places.

Running for public office is a thankless, solitary job.

She feels like a villain sometimes, a person haunted by sins she's borrowed from her elders. It feels as if she’s hurt people she doesn’t know and now they’re out to get her. Eyes size her up from all corners, judge her, deem her unfit. Another Targaryen with delusions of grandeur. She often vacillates between being proud of her family name, in spite of its blackened history, and hating the very sound of it.

Tonight is one of those nights.

_No, that’s your father’s hollow legacy. Your brother’s blind greed. You’re not like them. You must show them you are a different sort. A different sort._

Tyrion’s words and hers, a medley she hums in her head whenever she needs to feel grounded. 

But that’s just it. She’s tired of feeling grounded, of proving she’s worthy. She's reached her quota of self-mortification. She doesn't always want to be a different sort. 

She leans further out, contemplating the fall below. Of course she would _never_. God knows she hasn’t been touched by Targ madness yet. But she wishes for impossible things. She wishes the fireworks would come to her. She wishes fire would bend to her will.

“ _Whoa_. Careful.”

There’s a steadying hand on her back, pulling her away from the edge.

Dany turns around disconcerted. She’s far more shocked by the touch than the possibility of falling.

She collides into a solid body.

A boy. No, a young man. She can’t be sure. In this smoky darkness he looks like a teenager who’s snuck into an adult party.

It’s the stubble, like a burnished contour, that finally settles it. He must be around her age but he wears his youth better.

He’s got curly jet hair and a kind, yet searching look in his eye. As if he wouldn’t judge her if she _really_ meant to jump, but he at least wants to know _why_.

Dany reels back. 

She almost hates him for a moment. How dare he assume a _weakness_ in her, how dare he put her in this vulnerable position, and will he tell the press that he found Daenerys Targaryen moping on a balcony, pulling a Kate Winslet on the Titanic, and in fact, will _that_ be the headline – No, no, the papers will make it sound crueler –

“You all right?” he asks and there’s a sobering thickness in his voice, the hint of an accent.

Dany blink. She suddenly feels ashamed of her thoughts. He probably doesn’t even know her. Not _everyone_ in this city recognizes old, dirty money. 

She’s still rather pinned against him. She knows that her eyebrows are probably speaking a language of their own but she tries to tame her features, make them cooperate.

“Yes, thank you. But I wasn’t going to – well, _you know_. I suppose it’s a cliché this time of year, the suicide rates going up.”

If she expected him to laugh she’s sorely mistaken. If possible, he looks even more concerned than before.

It’s such an odd little thing but when his forehead creases in that way he almost reminds her of – her late brother?  That man loved to brood.

Dany shakes her head. “I was just trying to get a look at the fireworks, honestly.”

He seems to believe her this time, stepping away from her, but not far enough that she can go past him.

“They started a bit early, there’s still two minutes to midnight,” he says and shows her his phone.

Dany swallows. Did he film her? Did he take a photo? But how to ask him without sounding even more deranged?

She folds her arms around herself.

“Are you cold?” he asks, ready to shrug off his jacket for her benefit and Dany thinks, _he must be out of town_. No one is that nice around these parts.

She’s about to say no, but just then her body betrays her going into a full shudder. She left her coat inside.

She can’t help staring when he removes his jacket. He’s definitely – well – nothing _bad_ to report physically.

He wraps it gingerly around her shoulders. The soft woolen lining is divine. She inhales the smell of engine oil, warm leather and…winter pines?

“You don’t happen to own a bike, do you?”

He smiles sheepishly. “Guilty as charged. What gave it away?”

“Asha smells the same.”

Dany realizes instantly that was a stupid thing to say. “Er, sorry, that would be the hostess…”

He laughs. “Yeah, Asha and I go back a bit. We used to ride bikes together.”

“ _Oh_! So you know her?”

She feels a bit more comfortable now that he’s not entirely a stranger, not really an intruder.

“I know her brother better.”

Dany's eyebrows bolt up against her will. He seems _delighted_ with her reaction.

“Yeah, I don’t fault you. He’s a bit of a knob.”

Dany chuckles. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“You have a very expressive face,” he remarks out of the blue, staring her straight in the eye. “Gives away... a lot.”

It could be a _line_ , but it doesn’t sound like it because it’s almost charmingly insulting. It sounds like something he’s just thought of, and yeah, that sounds about right. Tyrion is always in agony about it. _Control your face, woman!_ is the common refrain.

She could tell him, _my campaign manager complains about the same thing_ and put an end to this momentary flirtation. But there’s something almost innocent about it, she can’t help herself. He clearly has no idea who she is.

“Why aren’t you downstairs with everyone else?” she asks softly.

He shrugs. “This time of year…I don’t know. It doesn’t feel genuine, everyone coming together. As if we all had so much love for each other.”

Dany nods. God, she knows _exactly_   what he means. She figures he must be from somewhere north from here. His syntax gives him away. 

“Maybe the truth is nobody loves anybody, but we make do,” she replies, not cynically, not even bitterly. It’s more reflective than anything. This is the human condition. We rub our hands to get warm. Her family certainly never seemed to love anyone but themselves, or so it goes. 

The stranger smiles sadly. “You don’t believe that.”

Dany can hear it coming from below. The countdown. Everyone on the street is shouting it, a prognosis of doom.

“Well, a stranger lent me his jacket tonight, out of the goodness of his heart, so maybe I don’t believe it, after all,” she admits and looks down almost shyly.

He laughs, caught off guard, caught up in the moment. "You think that's proof of love?" 

Because _yes_ , that's the logical conclusion she's accidentally put forward. 

"N-no. Of course not."

_Seven – six – five – four –_

She looks up in time to catch something wistful in his eye, a desire that is born before he even knows it.

They both lean forward at the same time.

It’s the countdown, possibly. The pressure to make this moment matter. But it doesn’t feel artificial. It feels a little mad and just right. Kissing a stranger in full sight of everyone. The genius of it is that everyone is looking elsewhere: fireworks, a lover's face.

She kisses him softly, tentatively, tasting rum and coke on his lips, youthful exuberance, recklessness and all things sweet. But there’s something older underneath. He kisses her back, opening his mouth, offering himself and the openness makes her knees shake and her lips part and his teeth sink in and kissing shouldn't be this quiet and feral but there it is. 

There’s gravitas underneath the butterflies in her stomach. He tastes like sugared snow, sharp and cold, so cold it burns.

It’s both intense and grounding, like being pulled in two directions, cement and sky, fireworks and smoke and leather, and December melting into January.  It's not life-altering, it's life-affirming. 

He presses her back into the railing, wrapping his fingers around the cold metal, enclosing her, erasing her from view.

They kiss like they have nothing in common except for this unspoken thirst. 

She leans back, he leans in.

Wouldn’t it be ironic if they both fell?

 

 

One of her braids has come undone. She doesn’t try to fix it up. She leans her head against the window.

Traffic is almost unmentionable this time of night.

The cab takes a sharp turn and her head rattles.

“Sorry, Miss.”

“That’s all right.”

“Say…aren’t you…?”

Dany murmurs that in fact yes, even politicians like to take a night off _ha ha_. Though it’s more likely the driver knows her because of her father and not because she is running independently, years after his death. She forces a smile. The driver is as old as Aerys once was, but sports his wrinkles better.

She thinks of the young man she’s just kissed. She can still feel his stubble against her cheek. She doesn’t want to pull out her compact and look at her face, see the evidence.

She doesn’t regret running away. Maybe it was cowardly, but reality sank in pretty quick. It had to, eventually.

When they parted, he looked almost scared, but elated. His first night in the city and the taste of it was intoxicating. She smiled sadly, her heart breaking for an unknown reason. Oh, no, the reason was not that unknown, but she did not want to know it right at _that_ moment. She pecked his cheek, whispered “thank you for this, I won't forget it” and slipped past him, as if to say _let’s keep this moment intact._

He was so dumbfounded he let her walk away. When he finally turned around and cried, “Wait!” she was already rushing down the stairs.

 

 

 

She walks through her front door, slips out of her heels and crashes on the bed with snow on her lips.

She startles from the sheets at dawn, realizes with a wounded gasp that she’s still somehow wearing his jacket.

 

 

 

Twenty-four hours later she deigns to answer the phone. She decided she could waive actual conversations until she was a little more like herself again.

She bites into her toast as Missandei runs down her schedule for next week.

“Tyrion also told me he’s called back-up from the North. Apparently you have some distant cousins or nephews up there…minor Targaryens you can pull out of a hat for the family op-eds.”

“Oh God, you’re _joking_.”

“That’s why Tyrion ran it by me first. He knew how you’d react.”

“How I’d _react_? I didn’t even know I still had cousins in the North! I don’t need to be surrounded by more Targs, I already have the ghosts at my back.”

“Mm, I _know_. But he said it’s about legacy and continuity and heritage and being proud of one's roots…well, I tuned him out at that point.”

Dany pinches the bridge of her nose. “Does he really think I have no shot at this? Because this reeks of despair.”

“Do you want me to fire him? Please say yes, Khaleesi.”

Khaleesi, their private joke from their college days and that one Anthropology course.

Dany chuckles and groans at the same time. “Let me think about it. By the way…do you know how I can possibly return a jacket to someone if I don’t know his name or anything about him?”

Missandei makes some not very dignified sounds on the other end.

“Oh my God, did you _finally_ get lucky last night? How long has it been anyway?”

“ _Good bye_.”

 

 

Inside one pocket she finds a box of matches with a strange, red-leafed tree etched on the back.

 

 

This morning she’s pinned her braids in a French twist and has left two curls to frame her face because this was how her mother often wore it whenever there was something unpleasant but necessary that needed doing. She’s read her emails, prepared a speech for the Little League game she’s going to attend this afternoon and already eaten her frugal cheese Danish. Nothing can go wrong if she just gets through today. And then the day after that, and the day after that, and so on.

Her office provides an open view down the hallway to the elevators so when he first steps into her peripheral sight she stupidly thinks, _he must be here for his jacket. He tracked me down somehow. He realized who I was. Of course he did. God knows what else he’ll ask for. No, stop it, he’s not like that. I just know he’s not._

Her inner rambling comes to a grinding halt when she spots Tyrion’s minute stature behind him. Her campaign manager gesticulates rather pointedly as he guides him towards Dany’s office.  

The shock doesn’t prevent her from putting two and two together. Her insides liquefy. This time she does think about jumping. She wants to disappear completely, along with her office headquarters.

It can’t – it can’t be him.

The one guy in the city she decided to kiss on New Year’s. It can’t be the fucking distant relative from the North.

She doesn’t know who controls her body in the next few moments. She manages somehow to get up and brush her suit pants. She even manages to breathe, though the panic attack seems to be strangling her.

 _You have a very expressive face_ , he told her. _Gives away ...a lot._

_Oh God, oh God, oh God…._

“Ah, here is the woman of the hour and our future District Attorney if this town knows what’s good for them,” Tyrion says by way of introduction as he ushers the young man into her office.

“Tyrion, honestly…” she mutters, staring blindly at the carpet.

“I know, I know, we don’t want to jinx it,” he says good-humoredly and turns abruptly to the young stranger. “But really, wouldn’t _you_ vote for her?”

Dany knows her cheeks are slowly becoming ripe. She can’t look at him, can’t face him. Not yet. She busies herself with her cufflink.

“I would,” he speaks for the first time, his voice hoarse, yet earnest and without falter. Like he doesn’t need to give it a second thought.

She can tell he is looking at her, sizing her up, trying to understand how this is possible.

“Thank you,” she mutters, eyes stopping somewhere at the lapels of his coat. He is wearing a suit and tie underneath. Has dressed up to meet her. She wants to die.

“Where was I? Oh yes,” Tyrion presses on obliviously, “this is Jon Snow, your – ah – _nephew_ from Winterfell. You might recall your late brother Rhaegar’s affection for his mother, Lyanna Stark.”

She doesn’t, not particularly.  She was a mere babe when Rhaegar went astray. He fathered a child and then returned to the fold, slinking back to his legitimate family like an old fox. He’d tried to rebel and failed which was so very typical of their lot. He always sent money north, however. Made sure the boy wanted for nothing. She had put this _boy_ out of her mind. She had never even met him, only seen photos when he was young, too young to even be considered real.  She is ashamed now she did not make an effort. If she had, all of this would have been - 

She has to meet his eyes when he steps forward, arm raised.

They shake hands perfunctorily and there’s a fragile veneer of politeness that conceals the turmoil underneath. The touch is not unlike that first time when he pulled her back from the balcony, but there’s an opposite force in it; she’s being thrown off the edge.

Her skin tingles unhappily.

She’s kissed him. She kissed her nephew, kissed him long enough to taste his tongue, inhale his fragrance, feel him against her body in all his solidness and there’s absolutely nothing she can do about this memory or its reality.

His eyes in the light of day are less dark and more grey, troubled waters and hidden depths.

He stares at her with a look that is part remonstrance part pleading, accusing her and absolving her in the same breath, turning the blame on him. And it’s suddenly so clear to her that he’s a Targ, because there’s that fierce need for self-flagellation, that sense of heightened destiny. There’s something foreign in him too, alpine and soft.

But the familiarity chokes her.

 _Rhaegar_.

And she thinks, _you felt chemistry, a connection, but it was just blood_.

This cursed blood that won’t wash away.

 

 

She strings a few competent words of greeting, even invites him to sit down.  All the while she’s walking on thin ice.

She sits down at her desk, flips through documents and invitations, makes a mess of what her assistant painstakingly arranged.  

Jon watches her beringed fingers as if she’s dealing tarot cards. Her middle finger sports the Targaryen sigil. The black dragons wink at him.

When Tyrion turns away to answer a call, she leans forward, eyebrows converging in a self-punishing expression.

“I still have your jacket,” she whispers.

Jon inhales sharply. His calm exterior is a house of cards.

The grey in his eyes burns like flint. “I’m aware.”

“What do we do about it?” she asks, casting the words in the abyss.

He looks lost. _What do we do about it? What do we **do**?_

Neither of them seems to know.

She knows where she left his jacket, on the back of her favorite armchair in front of the east window where she likes to sit and read.

She can picture it; him picking up the jacket, bending down and pressing warm lips to the top of her head before he leaves.

Like a vision into the future, a future that must never come into existence.

From now on he is her nephew and those damned seconds before the New Year will be trapped within a dream. She’ll make a ring of it, wear it on her finger, another sigil of the past.

Jon runs a hand through his curls and she can almost feel the static.

She bites her lip.

“Jon, I’m _so_ sorry about this. This isn’t how I wanted to meet you, I promise you that –”

“I’m not,” he cuts her off. “Sorry, that is.”

He says it quickly. The words rush out. Not meanly, not even defiantly. Each syllable is honest, artless. That foreign element from the North.

She shivers down to the bone, because defiance would be easier. She could get by with that.

But this undiluted sincerity makes her dizzy. It’s a kind of cruelty.

Tyrion returns to the table and they must stop, but the dialogue continues, somewhere in their minds.

Whenever she catches his eye, his words pour over her like grey sleet. _I’m not. Sorry, that is._

She welcomes the sting.

“…Jon has agreed to stay until elections, and who knows beyond that? We might arrange something nicely,” Tyrion is saying in his usual oblique way.

Dany steels herself.

Yes, Jon is here to stay.

 

 

(She walks into her apartment and start shedding clothes. She takes everything off, even the rings. She feels the winter chill on her spine as she lies down on the bed bed and wraps the jacket around her.

 

In another part of town, he’s thinking about her in his jacket.)


End file.
